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Luka Productions, known around here for his Fasokan LP and renowned in Mali for a prolific output of contemporary Malian Hip Hop is back in the studio on a new project. Bringing in a group of musicians, ngoni, guitar, percussion, synth, and computer, it’s very exciting stuff. Luka seems to be at the front of the avant garde beatmakers, forging a path that is both respected and popular, but remarkably original in execution. Electronic Malian music is not new – but the purposeful interpretation a new thing. While there are dozens of producers turned musicians, Hip Hop producers turned studio engineers, the beat-making is almost always left behind as a “indulgence of youth.” The two worlds are self contained, and music rarely spans the rift.

The group, yet to be named, has dropped a few tracks to me via Whatsapp. Mali Internet 2.0 has obviously shifted things around in the country. Just recently the government temporarily blocked social media during a government protest, attempting to intercept the role of social media communication to rally the populace. With Whatsapp on every phone, communication (in spite of Bamako’s elites) has never been easier. Media flows both ways – even writing about music, on said blog, is no longer a mystery box for West Africa, but this post alone will be shared and promoted via Bamako’s Facebook channels.

Sitting far away in Portland, I’ve been watching the progress of the session via Whatsapp, with live in-studio jams from the luka productions studio – a mini Boiler Room, while everyone crowds into the tiny studio. I scour the internet for a non-English speaking music residency (the band wants to do some work in Europe), and how best to talk about a music genre that doesn’t exist yet.

Digging at the mp3 market in Bamako, I had the vendor send me over a folder entitled GAO RAP. Containing, of course, what the title says – Rap music from the Northern Mali city of Gao. Which in itself would not be so remarkable if it wasn’t for what rap music from Gao sounds like. Which is nothing else in the world.

Rap in foreign languages leaves much to the imagination, and the unfamiliar ear gravitates towards the production over the lyrical content. There is a heavy use of autotune, and a certain reverbed synth that carries the melody. All of the productions tend to have little flourishes, the light hand of fruity loops. It’s low-fi in a way that is already a thing of the past, a signature of the early 2000s, PC based music.

Gao lies in what is essentially the extreme North East of Mali. You can go no further without leaving the asphalt behind. At a crossroads (both culturally and literally), Gao accumulates a little from every side. Musical influence is equally part high energy Balani Bamako Hip Hop and the sweet and cheesy autotune of Hausa pop music, combined with fascinating rhythms of that homegrown sort, with sudden changes that reflect the intermittent improvised breakdowns at the heart of takamba.

As a genre, GAO RAP may end here – at the title of an mp3 or the folder of a music collector at Bamako’s music market. It’s not something considered, certainly not abroad, but neither in Mali. It’s hardly a genre, or even a subculture – and it may not exist for long enough for such bold words. But it is a localized experimentation and a sound inseparable from a place and time. It exists, and it sounds like Gao.

“Luka Productions” is based in a small studio off a busy street in the capital of Bamako. The mural on the outside of the building, with giant microphone and curling graffiti letters is arguably larger than the four walls inside. A repurposed boutique, there are two small couches framing the the computer and console of studio engineer, rapper, and producer Luka Guindo. His portrait hangs over the computer. Behind plexiglass is a closet sized sound booth.

Luka, responsible for the Supreme Talent Show album and hundreds of other tracks, is self taught and PC based (cubase, reason, and fruityloops) – one of many producers/studio owners that create all the hip hop produced in Bamako, and by default Mali (there are smaller Hip Hop studios scattered throughout country, and at least one distinctive Hip Hop style in Gao). Every composer has singular style. Luka relies on melodies – he plays piano in the local church – that mimic the vocals, complementing one another. The drums are heavy and punchy, and pitch bended keys solo over the distinctive and improvisational rhythms. He often adds cut up djembe and balafon to the mix to give a local touch, which are sampled though not in the studio, but packaged in a Native Instruments plugin (the website seems aimed at Western audiences, unbeknownst that their product is probably used more in West Africa). If there are doubts to the authenticity of the production, Luka includes a drop at the beginning and end of every track.

Luka is quiet when working and rarely looks up. His eyes are glued to his computer, and his hands fly over the keyboard with a series of shortcuts, deftly cutting and loudly slamming the keyboard to drop in segments of a track. Ticking off the metronome, he adds to a production layer by layer, before improvising a melody. The vocalist steps into the booth minutes later, and the track is recorded. At the end, he does a quick master – these are not tracks for high end stereos or audiophiles. Most, if not all of the listening will be on cellphones, USB radios, car stereos, and youtube.

Hip Hop is the most popular youth music in Mali. Songs circulate via the new media distribution of mp3s and usb keys, but are also posted online – the two biggest curators of Mali Hip Hop are websites and youtube channels – RHHM and Bamada-city – both based in France and run by Malian expats. With open distribution channels and the low cost to record tracks, the music is uncensored by either institution or government. Last year, battle raps and clashes became so prominent that the government attempted to intervene, as lyrics were insulting parents of other rappers, including some prominent social figures. While some producers align themselves with rappers, in doing so, they’ve been caught up in the feuds. Luka has tried not to get involved – he wont let people record “clash” vocals.

Luka’s studio is DIY and cobbled together with what is at hand. Much of the equipment has made the journey here from the US or Europe via traveling friends and family. For professional engineers in Mali, it’s not the best, and there a few high end studios in Bamako. But Luka makes up for this with talent and speed. He can dash out a song in minutes. The better studios are too expensive. Unused and inaccessible, they gather dust – and their engineers rarely get a chance to record.

While the culture of piracy is strong, it hasn’t deterred youth from wanting to rap. Luka’s studio is lucrative and busy, and even during a session, there’s another rapper waiting outside. Everyone has something to say. Luka is also rapping on his own productions. He shows me one of his new videos, shot in a village and boasting an incredible opening shot – made with a drone. He recently released a CD, which has already been pirated. “Sometimes people come up to me and tell me ‘I love your music, I have all your songs on my cellphone.'” He laughs. “They don’t realize the problem with that.”

Supreme Talent Show is a Malian duo, Mèlékè Thiathio and MC Waraba. Their music is hard to classify, at least in recognizable Western terms (which may suggest how far the international music scene lags behind). It’s bass heavy and the bpms are frantic and infused with movement. This isn’t accidental – this is the music of a generation who grew up in the shadow of Balani Show neighborhood sound systems.

In the late 90s, when Balani Shows became the rage in Bamako, DJs began experimenting with samplers and CDJs to recreate Balafon style village parties in the capital. The innovation was both artistic and economical. A full Balafon outfit was expensive to rent and heavy to assemble. CDJs and speakers were much easier. A class of DJs rose to prominence providing signature remixes, soundtracking the festivities. The Balani Show parties gave way to a new genre of music known as “Ambience,” or the ambient dance music that could be played during the Balani Show. Around the same time, Hip Hop was securing a foothold in Mali with influences of American Hip Hop, but equally that of the Parisian suburbs. It is no coincidence that Bamada City and RHHM, the largest promoters of Malian Rap, are both based in France.

Luka Production in studio, 2012

Today in Bamako there are a plethora of studios producing Hip Hop. The top and most well known is Sidiki Diabate, with his flourish of kora and pitch bending keyboards (and producing exclusively with Iba One), to Pap Junior, and Luka Productions. While the majority of Malian Hip Hop is unique, much is hyper modern, with punchy beats, slick crashes, and lightning fast rap. Some of it exists in a conscious defiance against ancient musics, made for the club; quite a lot of draws heavily on tradition. Supreme prides themselves on the latter: “We chose this name because we know that we have the Talent to show that our culture is the best, with Djembe, Bala[fon], and Tama. Supreme because we leave all the others behind. And we have the talent to make people move when we make a [Balani] Show.”

The high energy dance music of groups like Supreme fall somewhere between the old school Balani Show remixes of the late 90s and the new generation of synthesizer slick Battle Rap of the Sahel (they refer to their style as “human rights”). Listening to the music, it’s easy to hear transnational influences of Kuduro, Coupe Decale, and Hip Hop. While Angolan Kuduro is an established scene, the “ambience” music of groups like Supreme lie outside of the mainstream, even in Bamako. With only a handful of groups creating in this vein, it’s more akin to an electronic music subculture in the West than representative of a full fledged scene – a branch of youth culture at the fringes, like in Chicago, Berlin, or Istanbul – just much smaller. In Bamako, the fusion of ancient and modern seems to be a the driving force, with a seemingly limitless potential and deep musical history to pull from. Although it may not be live, balafons cut into samples, triggered on a keyboard, and tracked in Fruityloops, the sounds suggest a new tradition.

* Special thanks to Midnight Ravers, a French duo who recently were in Mali working with Supreme Talent Show, among others for a collaborative music and art project – and who have contributed photos and a bonus track on the digital download, Koroni Foli!

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what

exploration of sound and music in west africa, particularly in the sahel region of mauritania, mali, and niger via filmmaking, field recordings, visual art, mp3 archiving, cellphone data collection, and cross cultural experiments